I've stayed at London Drugs for 10 years up until this year, about 8 years longer than I originally planned...

Good company, good values, good culture, honest leaders, but a golden cage.

Terrible pay for new hires and even management, but their sales reflect the fact that they can't compete against some bigger players and also can't afford more competitive salaries. Almost non-existent commission structure so there is little to no incentive to sell.

Work days are typical 8 hours shifts with two 30 minute breaks. Electronics departments are the most interesting, you're always playing with new toys or talking to the most interesting customers. Ultimately head office demands more and more from the same people without touching their salaries, which have been frozen for years. Median age of the head office staff is easily in the late 40s or 50s and are growing increasingly out of touch with where the market will be. Clear example: London Drugs has some of the most terrible cellular activation execution I've ever seen. Some stores have almost no staff capable of activating a cellphone and for the staff that are good at it, the commission at competing companies is lucrative enough to get them to leave, it's absolute pennies to activate customers at LD and hardly worth the effort.

Meanwhile, companies like Amazon are really putting the squeeze on your classic box retailers like London Drugs and you can see it in the faces of the staff and the slowing customer traffic.

Older staff are on the old pay scale and make as much as a Masters graduate yet are often less effectivemore... than the kid getting paid half their salary... The company doesn't let people go, which is generally nice, but it certainly doesn't pressure them to keep up with the times as much as it should.

I wish the company the best going forward, but something drastic will need to change if they plan on growing. Otherwise it's a slow, agonizing death march for a truly great Canadian company.less

Pros

Culture, Management, Customers

Cons

Terrible pay for new hires, departments are often understaffed, can't seem to compete with other dedicated and specialized retailers

Retail people are overworked and underpaid. London Drugs does things differently, they treat their people with dignity and respect. It shows, too: look at all the people who have been there 10,20, even 30 years. You don't see that in retail.

Although a better experience in retail, it is still retail. It's low pay and you are underappreciated for your efforts. Communication between head office and the stores are awful and it is clear that they have very little experience at the store level. This makes some aspects of the job frustrating. There is less turn-over compared to other retail positions I have experienced.

Management have become a bunch of delicate flowers and are always stressed

Cashier (Former Employee) – Red Deer, AB – 19 October 2018

I worked there for some time, it didn't long for me to become unhappy with management., sometimes difficult to get time off especially when everyone wanted the same days off. Management can be insulting in the public eye, I was one aisle over when management compared me to another coworker who was not as good as me when it came to facing. coworkers would insult you in front of customers. Ugly uniforms, I did enjoy some time there too, however the not so pleasant outweighs the great times, As far as family business. Nothing compares to when i worked at zellers.

I will never go back to working there, not if i can help and either will my kids if i have any say..

If your a hard worker, you don't get much credit for that when the slackers get away with doing as little as possible.

London Drugs was a great place to work, I learned so many different types of jobs while working there. My shift mainly started at 5am, so much to do at that time, between changing prices, putting and taking down a ad, merchandising, or stock.

Great co-workers, production personnel at DSC. Everyone like a family, and company has a lot of policies and procedures which is really good. This was a really great part of the job. Unfortunately, maintenance dept. management are far behind, they are not care about equipment neither people who work there. DSC location is really remote and if you don't have a good car it ll be a trouble to get here. Big turn over through maintenance department. Management just create a drama around. No parts available and if you try to fix machines properly, they just punish you and request to put broken parts back . Yes, management just getting a bonuses for it.That is why whole department contain unqualified personnel. Company and culture is great especially it is local company, but huge budget cuts and disrespect people and the work that has been done is just bring all equipment and operation down.

I've been with LD for close to 18 years and it's really started to go downhill in the last 10. Staff morale isn't very good, mostly because of hours being reduced and every long-term employee hasn't had a pay-raise in 7 years. Cost of living in BC is no longer in-line with what we're being paid and the frustration among the staff is getting worse.

Still, the people I work with are like my second family and the benefits are quite good for a retail establishment.

There is always good and bad in every job it's all in how you handle it. As the years have gone by, because of the department I work in there have been many upgrades and changes. The hardest part I find dealing with lately is our elderly customers passing away. There's no real support for that just continue on with your day, but you get so close to so many. The tone of the pharmacy has changed with the cutomers more demanding and not always nice. Again no real support from company.Overall though after 12 years I know most by name thst come in. I know their families and they know mine. The good always out weighed the bad.

The London Drugs warehouse once was the pride of the company. London Drugs had pioneered new logistical trends, and was innovative in it's supply management solutions. But those days are long gone. With the birth of Ecommerce, the central supply network of London Drugs should be revamped from the ground up, instead, a very short sighted management team has built a very inefficient patchwork system, and wonders why the customers continue to purchase from the competitors. All the while patting themselves on the back for 1% growth rates. Meanwhile the rest of the industry is growing double digits!

London Drugs gave me a great time of employment while i was there. and would have no problems going back to them for employment again in the future. the job titles and requirements were easily laid out and understandable and you were free to pursue your duties how you saw fit. customer service was great and customers were happy. provided a great way to learn about new products and helped you help others.

Depends on the location really. The stores have lots of different roles to fill, but the problem can come down to over filling the roles or under-relying on outer departments. Full time hours are hard to come by for newcomers as well as employees who've been around longer. store can sometimes seem to only rely on a core group of emplyees with others playing minor supporting or expendable roles.

Pros

Good benefits, potential to grow and move into different positions

Cons

Not always possible to achieve full time hours, potential management issues resulting in payroll cuts